


The Degeneration of Daenerys Targaryen

by ApricityAlpenglow



Series: My Game of Thrones Rants [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Essay, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2020-01-13 09:58:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18466627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ApricityAlpenglow/pseuds/ApricityAlpenglow
Summary: I've been asked why I don't like Daenerys Targaryen and so in honor of the season premier today I've decided to post my answer to that question. In detail.





	1. Part 1

Character development is the root of loving a character. I’m going to come back to this but I’ll start with that. In season 1 Dany was nothing. She was a girl harassed by her brother and sold to a man that she thought was a barbarian. Over season 1 we saw her grow as a person. We watched her become a Khaleesi and expectant mother and become free of her brother. We loved her, we rooted for her, when she lost he son and her husband we grieved with her, and when she hatched her dragons we believed in her. 

 

In season 2 she is the person she has become but she has no direction. She just wants the remains of her dothraki and her dragons to be safe. After the betrayals and the undying she wants to go back to Westeros but for that she needs an army. She decides that she’ll buy a slave army, which is kinda iffy but okay I’ll watch and see what happens. And then she gets the slave army and uses them to end slavery in the city! and then frees them and everyone else! It was amazing and awesome and told everyone that they were right to believe in her, she is good. Then she fought and freed two more cities and all the slaves had new lives because of her. And she decides to stay in Meereen and learn to be a ruler.

 

Before this we had no idea that she didn’t know how. She was doing great! Winning battles, freeing slaves, being adored by the masses. Except that isn’t what ruling is. In Meereen she doesn’t know what to do. People are fighting, she’s trying to figure out what to do with these people that disagree with her, how does she keep the city going but still deal with the slavery? And then there’s the problems happening in the other cities. She had freed them but well, she didn’t exactly stick around to see how it went. 

 

The issue with slaver cities is that they consist of two things: slaves and slavers (or those who wish they were rich enough to be slavers). She didn’t kill all the non slaves in the cities she took because that’s most of the population. And slaves, in a lot of cases, aren’t very good at freedom. People get used to being told what to do and when the orders stop, decisions can be hard to make. The situation for them is probably not unlike a kid, freshly eighteen or thereabouts, trying to figure out what to do with their self and their life. After nearly two decades of standard direction and legally required school, moving out of that structure can leave some people floundering. [Morally] Taking care of a human being has a learning curve even if that human is yourself. 

 

So with that tangent in mind, many of the freed slaves followed Dany (either because they didn’t know what to do, thought she’d protect them from future slavery, or didn’t want to stay in the cities that kept them in chains) and others that stayed were not equipped to handling the ruling of their cities and keeping the former slavers from picking up old habits. AKA everything in Slaver’s Bay was falling apart and Dany could not figure out anything to fix it because she still wanted to pick up her armies and head to Westeros. 

 

It’s an odd thing to think about. Slaver’s Bay (despite the fact that she spent an entire season conquering it, and another season trying to rule it) is something like a whim to her. She went there to get an army to take to Westeros and I guess got offended? by slavery and decided to end it? But she kept a slaver next to her the entire time. Jorah was exiled (more like ran away from his execution but whatever) for selling people into slavery. She knew it. But she didn’t do anything about it? After she had every slaver killed? Like seriously, what, did she just not want her favorite slaver to have any competition?

 

At this point, we, the audience, are invested in slaver’s bay and want Dany to succeed but we’ve also watched Westeros tear itself to pieces. We’ve seen a monster on the throne she claims and we’ve seen everyone else in the series doing something about it and great battles be fought, and political maneuvering aplenty. And meanwhile Dany, with her professional army, thousands of devotees, and three dragons, is trying to bring order to a city she has already conquered? It’s starting to feel repetitive and in retrospect it’s kind of obvious. What was supposed to happen when a city is conquered, their way of life is dismantled (because slavery is literally the economic system in Slaver’s Bay and some of the free cities), and they are now ruled by someone who knows nothing about their lives or their culture? 

 

Dany tries. She does. And then she isn’t there but political genius Tyrion Lannister is and he’s trying smarter and working to fill in Dany’s gaps. And then it goes as expected. Slavers want to keep slavery and mostly their cities and Dany comes in and fire and bloods everything. And it all felt…backwards. 

 

She walked out of a fire when her dragons hatched and her dothraki knelt to her. She walked out of a burning building and more dothraki knelt to her. I know it’s supposed to have symmetry but it felt like backsliding. She was the same person when she came out of both those fires. Despite the years and events in between she had not changed, she had not developed. When she faced problems she solved them in the exact same way. 

 

Witch that took your son and made your husband brain-dead: burn her. Undying trying to take your dragons: order your dragons to burn them. Need an army: trade them a dragon and order the dragon to burn them. Khals telling you to follow their cultural norms and be Dosh Kolleen while being insulting: burn them. Conquered cities in revolt: try to do something about it then give up and burn them. Enemy armies: burn them. Strangers saying they won’t kneel to her: burn them. 

 

Daenerys is, in the worst possible way, a one trick pony. 

 

Bafflingly, the dothraki decide to follow her. After she killed their leaders and burned down part of their sacred city…but okay sure, they’re barbarians that are all about war and strength, okay. 

 

She burns the slaver people and then decides to just up and leave for Westeros. Just like that. Everything that she was doing for seasons 4 and 5 just tossed away in favor of fire. (I realize that the literal show had to go on and she had to go to Westeros for plot reasons but there was no resolution for everything that happened in Meereen) She just left Daario in charge, picked up all her forces and left. Despite the question of how is Daario supposed to hold the city any better than she did with no army to back him up.

 

And here comes the major problem. Dany heads to Westeros. She wants to take the iron throne. And she wants to for the sole reason that she wants to. And that is it.

 

Dany, in every situation we have seen her in has always had the moral high ground. Stopping women from being raped, punishing the witch that murdered her child, stopping people from stealing her dragons, and fighting slavers. She has always had a reason that was just and righteous. You couldn’t not root for her because she was fighting for justice. Her enemies were bad and she was good. 

 

When she comes to Westeros, she comes intending on taking over. Not because they are doing wrong and there are slaves to be freed, but because she wants the iron throne.

 

It’s selfish. Just plain old ego and greed. 

 

This is not to say that being selfish or greedy is bad and makes someone an unlikable or unrespectable character. Every character in the show, unlikable or not, has been selfish and greedy. Stannis, Renly, Joffrey, Balon, and Cersei have all tried to claim the iron throne (or just that they were kings (or queen)) because they wanted it. It’s greed, it’s ego, and it’s human and part of what makes them interesting characters. 

 

Daenerys has never been selfish, or greedy, or narcissistic. Never. People chose her as their queen. She made their lives better and they gave her their loyalty. She was someone her people could follow and so she was their ruler. Much like how Robb, and later Jon, was crowned. She was chosen. She didn’t take or demand.

 

And then she does. She takes and demands. We never saw this from her. We were not prepared for this and it is so different from what she’d done before. 

 

She questions and threatens her allies, demanding their loyalty. And then does absolutely nothing when her allies are taken by her enemies. When Yara and the Sands are taken by Euron she’s pissed off but does nothing to help them. Her allies, that she would probably burn if they failed to help her when she was in need, were left to rot (literally) even when she met Cersei face to face and came to a cease-fire. 

 

She hears about a king who united disparate people and was named a king when his people chose him for the role. Immediately, it isn’t respect that she felt for a monarch like herself that was crowned by the people he saved, but threatened and even offended that there is another king. That someone besides her could be loved by their people. She throws her weight around. Demands that this competitor give himself over to her power.

 

Competitor king is nice enough to show up but when she demands his allegiance and he refuses she is furious. She is so angry that this stranger she’s never seen before, from a land she’s never been to and knows nothing about, won’t hand his people over to her. Jon is a “guest” at Dragonstone while Dany continues to demand he kneel and Jon attempts to convince her of humanity’s imminent extinction. Even when she might be convinced that the threat to all humanity might actually be real she still refuses to act or imply that she’ll act unless said stranger from a strange land hands over his people.

 

She finally agrees that if Jon can prove to her, and to Cersei, she’ll help but only on the condition that Cersei agree too. And then she sends Jon to retrieve a wight.

 

Alone.

 

She offers no assistance on this quest she’s requiring of him to help HER war with Cersei. Jon goes north with a handful of people, none of which are Dany’s people, because she’s too busy setting people on fire. 

 

She does go to save Jon. An event that I can’t decide the motivation of: guilt for sending Jon in the first place, some actual political awareness that the North won’t kneel if she gets their king killed, or good intentions. I find it really difficult to believe it was good intentions because then she would have sent more people with him or assisted herself. If she can really get north so quickly and actually intends on helping fight the white walkers wouldn’t she want to see the threat and the conditions herself (or at least one of her battle people see it) so her people are prepared for the war to come?

 

And yet even when she goes, sees the truth, loses her dragon (hands it to the Night King), and has Jon bend the knee she is still prioritizing Cersei and King’s Landing. She’s already north with her dragons and has seen the white walkers and has first hand experience or how bad they are (even to dragons) and she still thinks it’s best for every single living creature under her command to be at King’s Landing for the sole purpose of Cersei. Or more likely the uncomfortable chair Cersei sits on that Dany covets like nothing else. 

 

Even Jaime, who loves Cersei and has every reason to remain by her side keeping her safe, thinks the white walkers are a great and immediate threat and he’s only seen a single wight. He abandons Cersei as soon as he realizes she’s not as invested as he is in humanity’s survival. And Daenerys sits around for a few episodes, starting fires, before she makes up her mind.

 

So Dany is not a good day-to-day ruler, not a good ally, not a good strategist, is no longer inspiring people, and still loves the thought of sitting on the iron throne more than one of her dragons. And she still somehow maintains that she is there to rule, that she wants to help people and make the world better. That those are her motivations. She even has the ridiculousness to say that because she was raped she deserves to be a queen. She complains about her marriage to Khal Drogo as if literally every woman in Westeros doesn’t experience being sold to a man of someone else’s choice. (I personally couldn’t stop thinking that if every woman that was raped deserved to be queen the seven kingdoms would run out of metal to make their crowns). The scene when she meets Jon is so weird to me because here’s Jon talking about white walkers and how humanity is going to end and then Dany just goes “I know what you were saying is important but I want to talk about me for a while.”

 

And through all of this. Though all of this mess that Dany makes, everyone still thinks she can do no wrong. Everyone talks about how great she is, how they follow her because they love her, new people seeing how amazing she is, her good heart, her kindness, Jorah the slaver still being in love with her, and “They’ll come to see you for what you are,” and “you do deserve it”.

 

The conclusion I come to is that Dany is someone who can no longer be empathized with and the story and characters do not react to her actual character and behavior. 

 

I’ve heard some talk about this being a problem with Emilia Clark’s acting and not with Daenerys or with the writing for the script. But all I have to say to that is I am reacting to the product they produced not the product they had in mind. Maybe it is the acting (I don’t think so, Emilia did such a wonderful job in the early seasons) or writing that is making the problem but I’ll never know what they had intended so it doesn’t really matter.

 

I hate Daenerys. I hate her because she’s a bad ruler, a narcissistic person, acts like a spoiled child, and most importantly because she took all the love I had for her, all the years of rooting for her to succeed, and she crushed it. 

 

She took my love and she turned it to ash. 

 

Just like she does every thing else apparently. And if that isn’t a metaphor to what she’ll do to the Seven Kingdoms I don’t know what is.


	2. Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Because you know what, I’m not done.

There are those that say that people like me who don’t like Dany only feel that way because she’s a woman. That if she were a man that we would like her for what she does. That we don’t want to see a woman be powerful. 

 

I say that is bullshit. 

 

Game of Thrones is known for its powerful women. There’s powerful women in every direction you turn.

 

Catelyn Stark wanted justice for her son and kidnapped a man and started a war to get it. She was powerful. Not the most sensible but powerful and we could empathize with her reasons. 

 

Olenna Tyrell insulted every person she met, forged the longest alliance in the show, made her granddaughter a queen, and killed a king because he was inconvenient to her plots. She was powerful. She wanted her family to be great, her granddaughter to have everything she wanted, and she wanted power. She killed everyone’s most hated person not because he was evil but because she thought he was inconvenient. She was selfish and she was unapologetic through all of it. She made no claims that killing Joffrey was for the good of the realm (although it definitely was) only that it was best for Margaery.

 

Margaery Tyrell earned the love of small folk and highborn alike much Daenerys claims to. She was a queen three separate times through her own power and successfully manipulated both the bendable Tommen and the mad Joffrey. She freed herself from the faith militant and almost managed to save her brother with nothing but her wits. She was powerful. She did everything because she wanted to be queen. She did everything for her own purposes and somehow still managed to be kind to everyone.

 

Arya is a trained assassin. Her combat prowess is incredible and she can literally steal someone’s face and pretend to be them. She can go where she please and kill who she please and there are few that have a hope to stop her. She does everything because she is obsessed with revenge. She literally gave up her identity just so she could have revenge. She is powerful. She is not kind or witty or even good but we can empathize with her. 

 

Brienne also is an incredible combatant. Her physical power is greater than most men we’ve seen on the show. Everything she does is so she can call herself honorable like the true knight she wishes to be. We can empathize with her. 

 

And then there is Cersei. Cersei is bad. She’s a bad queen, a bad ruler, and a bad person. She is selfish even to her own detriment. She starts her own problems mostly because of her ego. She wants because she wants. And some how I respect her. Even while I hate her I respect her as a queen and an adversary. She has always worn her power. She didn’t only demand it but she took it as well. Her driving forces have always been clear: protect her family and put herself in a position that she has to follow no one else’s orders. We’ve watched her make mistakes, watched her suffer, and watched her make others suffer. We know what she is and where she stands. 

 

Now Sansa is the most interesting comparison to make to Daenerys. Nobody liked Sansa in the beginning. She was a whiney girl who helped get her father killed and was a hostage that did nothing to contribute to the story. But she grew. Like Dany did over the first season, Sansa grew over seven seasons. For same reasons I loved Dany at the beginning, I’ve come to like Sansa now.

 

If Dany admitted to her selfishness, to being more than a bit of a power-hungry tyrant, I’d probably respect her more. Instead, all I hear is that she’s going to conquer Westeros for the good of Westeros and its people. People around her talking about how she’s the best and how Westeros needs her to help them. Like she did with Astapor, Yukai, and Meereen. Except there are no slaves in Westeros for her to free. All of her words are just words. Campaign promises with not a single fact to back them. What will she do when she has the iron throne? When the war is won there will be no battles to be fought or things to set on fire, just the day-to-day minutiae of running a Kingdom and stopping civil war? Politics and bureaucracy. Things that she’s already proven to be inept at doing while she was in Meereen. Giving up on building a working society in favor of setting things on fire is something she now has a history of. 

 

And then there’s all of her people from Essos to think about. What is she going to do with them? After wars are over most armies are dissolved to go back to working the land and doing useful things, not just killing people. Westeros will surely need more people and smallfolk after all the people who have died in the past decade. But unsullied are trained for one thing only and they can’t reproduce to bolster the population. They would probably remain guards and law enforcement for the realm during Dany’s rule which would probably be a pretty good thing.

 

But the dothraki. I should just put it out there: dothraki suck. These people are literally awful. They as a society are a collective band of roaming raiders. All they do is take and destroy. In their own city they use slaves to build the houses because they can build and create nothing. Ransacking towns and owning slaves are their bread and butter. When the war is won and the battles done what will she do with her dothraki? They can’t farm, they can’t even build their own homes. The only things they are good for are fighting and raping. What are tens of thousands of bored dothraki going to do when their ruler has no more battles for them to fight? I doubt the answer is go back to Essos. They are certainly not going to leave their queen that united them to cross the narrow sea just to cross it again without her. 

 

Does she hope that they all end up dying in the wars? I can't think of anything else to do with them. (I'm kind of having this entertaining thought of Dany putting them all on ships to send them back to Essos and all of Essos shouting "No!" and gathering the collective naval power of the entire continent to sink every dothraki ship before it makes land.)

 

(That would probably offend Dany. She'd probably start another war about it.)

 

Dany has power. She has armies and dragons and loyalty. She had allies and the greatest set of advisors she could possibly get. But her motivations are confusing. Supposedly she wants the iron throne. But when she got her army and Westeros was tearing itself apart trying to decide who should have the throne she was spending four years dicking around in Essos. Waiting for dragons to grow and learning to rule is one thing but she didn’t learn anything about ruling in Slaver’s Bay. I, as part of the audience, have no idea what’s happening in Slaver’s Bay but as far as I can tell she took apart the make up of their society and then up and abandoned it. It could all be back to slavery now that she and her armies are gone (and let’s face it, it probably is) and Dany hasn’t done anything or heard any word about it. Not the makings of the good queen she claims to be.

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to comment if you agree or disagree with me. I am always thrilled to talk about this with either side.


End file.
